(It is not a duplicate: Bug investigation is much more non-deterministic than a defined development task where things to be done are specified. Investigation is about narrowing a huge search space, ...

When using planning poker for estimates, we've ended up with effectively a non-linear points scale. By that I mean that point value is inconsistent for one-pointers and, say, eight-pointers. Couple ...

I have a question for you guys. Say, you're given a task as an item in a product backlog. Say, you have a deliverable that's due the following day. If you're behind on the task compared to when you ...

I'd like to get better at estimating how long it will take me to complete tasks. When estimating things I know little about, I think it's best to start with base rate information and adjust it based ...

I'm working as a developer / architect on a software project. The project manager decided not to follow the Agile principles, but to rather have an Excel sheet with all the feature requests and their ...

Some products can parse a special syntax in commit messages to extract additional data, such at time tracking information: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/FISHEYE/Using+smart+commits
To me, ...

I've been trying to figure out a way of calculating the estimated time remaining for an item in a queue when there are multiple workers processing items from the single queue.
A client submits a job ...

I sit with a project that I need to quote, and until the job is awarded, I can only use "View source" to check, and ask a few questions about the system. That makes quoting outright impossible for me ...

I have been having this experience for sometime now, when a client needs a software product and contacts me, the client usually wants to know the time frame on which this product will be accomplished. ...

We are basically using Waterfall life cycle methodology.
Requirement Analysis: I get a use case created by some one else.
Design (talking only about Low level design): I get some little feeling about ...

I am looking for a tool supporting me with estimations.
What I would like to do is to specify a higher level task and break it into several smaller tasks. When a task is small enough, I could assign ...

To better understand my question, let me elaborate the background of the subject matter.
I work in a financial institution where the business module (credit finance) is constantly changing. In the IT ...

How are effort estimations and duration estimations distinct?
At present my understanding is that effort is related to the amount of work required for one person to complete a task, and duration is ...

Recently we got a requirement for converting a classic asp project to asp.net.
This one is really a very old project created around 2002/2003. It consists of around 50 asp pages. I found very little ...

Sometimes, there are research and development projects where nothing is known in advance about the technology, concepts, and client. However, the manager still needs time estimates. What can I do to ...

The company where I work is aiming to have a 10% maximum error margin.They expect analysts to not miss the estimate by more or less than 10%.
I don't know what to think about it, since I got nothing ...

We are in a small company with around 10 developers. I am the team leader and responsible for the development process.
Supervisors and salesmen are close to us since we are a small team, but have no ...

In Joel's blog on evidence based scheduling he suggests making estimates based on the smallest unit of work and logging extra work back to the original task.
The problem I'm now experiencing is that ...

A client asked us to estimate effort when selecting PHP as the implementation language for his next web-based application. We spent about a week exploring PHP, prototyping, testing etc., We are quite ...

In an answer on how to make time estimates it is said to write down all your assumptions you made when estimating a project. Seems like a good plan.
Problem is, by assuming I already made an ass out ...

My project manager assigned me a task to estimate the development time for an iPad application. Lets assume that I gave estimation of 15 working days. He thought that the number of days where too many ...

At the beginning of every iteration our whiteboard is covered with "not started" stories estimated in IDEAL HOURS. On a daily basis we update these estimates to keep track of each task's progress. I ...

I'm a junior developer and I find it hard to estimate how much time it takes to finish a bigger software project. I know how to structure the architecture in general, but it's hard for me to know what ...

I'm thinking of things like:
designating a developer having say 6 hours out of their normal 7.5 hour day dedicated to the project, the rest for other work/company related activity (meetings, emails, ...

When a client asks for an estimate on how long it would take to develop different sections of an app, is it best to give them a total amount or what it would take for each section?
Is it better/more ...

It took me time T to develop program A, which is measured at 1000 lines of code (SLOC), in certain a language and domain and of a certain complexity. Is there a method to determine how much time it ...